Hiroshima: The World's Bomb

TheUS decision to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshimaon 6 August 1945 remains one of the most controversial events of thetwentieth century. However, the controversy over the rights andwrongs of dropping the bomb has tended to obscure a number offundamental and sobering truths about the development of thisfearsome weapon. The principle of killing thousands of enemycivilians from the air was already well established by 1945 and hadbeen practised on numerous occasions by both sides during the SecondWorld War. Moreover, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was conceived andbuilt by an international community of scientists, not just by theAmericans. Other nations (including Japan and Germany) were alsodeveloping atomic bombs in the first half of the 1940s, albeithapharzardly. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any combatant nationforegoing the use of the bomb during the war had it been able toobtain one. The international team of scientists organized by theAmericans just got there first. As this fascinating new historyshows, the bomb dropped by a US pilot that hot August morning in 1945was in many ways the world's offspring, in both a technological and amoral sense. And it was the world that would have to face itsconsequences, strategically, diplomatically, and culturally, in theyears ahead.